The New Boy
by peenisseverlarkalways98
Summary: Modern day AU. Moving into the house next door, is a blonde haired, blue eyed, 16 year old boy. Katniss is determined to never fall in love after the incident with her mother, but will opinions be changed with this seemingly perfect boy?
1. Chapter 1

_Katniss POV_

_BANG!_ The sudden sound of the delivery truck startled me until I was wide awake. New people moving in next door. It was fast considering our previous neighbours only moved out last week. We got on well with those ones, but they come and go all the time next door. It's easy to know why though, every night all me and Prim can hear is the sound of _her_ sobbing.

First day back at school. Nightmare. I crawl out of my bed, with no effort to do anything. The water fell down on me, soaking me from head to toe, allowing me to wake up from my perfect dream world. The shower is the only place that seems to relax me at the moment. Everywhere else only brings me stress.

As I slip into my underwear and do up the clasp to my bra, I hear laughter coming from downstairs. It's an odd sound to hear in my house. Haven't even heard it since my dad walked out on us. He left me and Prim without anything, fending for ourselves and trying to keep mum from having a mental breakdown. I fasten my hair into its signature braid and let the damp mess fall down my back. I slide my green shirt over my shoulders, trying not to get the buttons clasped around the small strands of hair that slipped out of my braid. I also place my legs into my shorts and force the button through the small hole cut into the denim.

_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_ My alarm clock sounds and I realise it's an hour late. I forgot it didn't even go off this morning and I assumed I had slept through it.

'Fuck!'

I run downstairs quickly, needing to have left 10 minutes ago in order to be at school on time. I grab a sour apple for my lunch, without any time to eat breakfast or make something proper to eat later on. Anyway, Mr Snow would not be impressed if I was tardy on my first day back, especially in the most important year of my school life.

I slam the door shut behind me. Mum has been taking a lot of time off work lately, even though _he_ walked out on us 5 years ago. She's meant to be teaching music to the students at my high school. Instead, she sits at home, comfort eating and feeling pity for herself on a daily basis. It's exhausting coming home from work each day of the summer break, clearing away empty packets of food, cleaning the entire house and cooking an evening meal for me and my younger sister, Primrose. I call her Prim for short. I told you, we had to fend for ourselves.

Walking along the street is a bit of a blur this morning. I'm not particularly focused on what I am doing, until the beep of a car horn brings my senses back to life.

'What's up stranger?', I suddenly hear being yelled from a vehicle on the other side of the road from me, heading in the same direction.

**_Authors note: _****This is our first FanFiction. We are in our final year of school so we have plenty of exams going on at the moment, but we will try to update as often as possible. We are English, but it is set in America, so we apologise if some of the writing is incorrect about American Schooling as we don't know much about it. We know it is short, but we will add the next chapter today and upload regularly. Please review/follow/favourite. Suggestion are welcome, just PM us and we will reply as soon as we can. **

**Katie&Kirsten**


	2. Chapter 2

_Katniss POV_

_'What's up stranger?', I suddenly hear being yelled from a vehicle on the other side of the road from me, heading in the same direction. _

I continue looking at the sidewalk, avoiding any eye contact with the boy with the blue sapphires twinkling on his face.

'It's Katniss right?'

I needed to reply as it's definitely none of _his_ business what my name is!

'What's it to you?'

'Would you like a ride? I think I live next to you, and I got told by your mum this morning that we go to the same school', he called over again.

I ignored him. I knew he lived next door. It was obvious. I opened my blinds after waking up this morning and saw him. His perfect body, sweaty, six-pack covered with small beads of perspiration dripping off of his tight body. Wait why am I thinking of him in that way? SHIT. What if he saw me when I got out of the shower? Maybe this is why he is suddenly so interested in "_giving me a ride_". He is new, maybe he doesn't know that I am not interested in anyone, not after what happened to my mum once my dad left us.

I only just remembered, my mum laughing this morning. Was it him that had something to do with it? He does seem charming but he isn't nudging into my life that easily. He can't. No one wants anything to do with me anyway, and he certainly wouldn't if he knew about my past. Ignoring him and staying on the down-low this year will be my way of staying out of trouble and avoiding any awkward discussions with people like him.

I'm contemplating the option, though. I am running late after all. However, I am hesitant and I think I will decide against it. My next dilemma, how to tell him no without sounding like a douche.

'Thanks but I'll pass. I'm very capable of using my two legs and I've been taught not to take rides from _strangers_. Anyway, I've been looking after myself since I was 11, I certainly don't need any help now'.

I don't know why I told him that. It's only inviting him to ask questions now. Surprisingly, he doesn't though.

'I'm sorry to hear about that, I'm only offering a ride. It makes sense as we are going to the same place. You won't make it on time and Mr Snow will probably give you a detention if your late. If we leave now, we will get there on time'.

What does he know about Mr Snow? He doesn't know how Mr Snow acts when people are late. Despite that, he is right. I step carefully off of the sidewalk, trying not to stumble and end up embarrassing myself, and I cautiously open his car door and get inside. I hardly know anything about him so what made me decide to go ahead and get in his car? _Maybe it's because you like him_, a voice inside my head says, but I block it out trying to ignore the possibility.

As we drive, his attempt of making small talk proved to be comforting. No one has ever tried talking to me, except from my small group of friends. This consists of my friend Annie Cresta and her boyfriend Finnick Odair **(CONNIE wishes it was her)**, my longest friend, Gale, and there is also Johanna, Madge and Thresh. Prim predominantly hangs around with Thresh's younger sister Rue. Rue is always round, which allows Thresh to come round all the time too, which I quite like as my mother has not always been 100% about me being friends with boys.

We turn up at the school gates and seconds later the school bell sounds. I feel a firm hand placed on my shoulder, and as I turn around, I see an irate Mr Snow, scowling at me and Peeta for arriving after the bell. He put us in isolation immediately. A day long detention with _Peeta_ is just what I need on the first day (note the sarcasm).

We arrive at the detention room and we are politely welcomed by the stench of alcohol coming from my _wonderful _Uncle Haymitch. He is one of many English teachers at my school (and I suppose I take after him with my talent when it comes to writing) and I am surprised he can get away with being drunk on a daily basis at work and not run the risk of getting sacked. It's probably because he's banging the art teacher, Mrs Effie Trinket (the best teacher in school who can argue her way out of every situation). If you ask him about it, he'll deny it and say he can find much better woman than her. Everyone knows it's bullshit. It's nice to notice he is already passed out, sprawled out over his desk with a bucket of vomit next to him. Looks like detention will be an easy ride today.

... ~ ...

*At the end of the day.*

I learnt a lot about Peeta Mellark today. I found out that he works at his parents bakery, he paid for his car out of his own money, he moved to Miami to where we are now in Colorado, he sleeps with the window open, he double knots his shoe laces, he doesn't take sugar in his tea. Also, he's single. That is an important factor. Wait, why do I care that he is single?

He offers me a ride home again. I accept. Before we set off, he asks to see my schedule. I show him and I find out we have the same lessons as each other. _Great_. Even more time with this Miami boy that everyone already seems to adore. I can't even try to avoid him to prevent falling for him. He lives next door, he goes to my school and he is in all of my lessons. This is not going well.

When I walk through the door I can't help but thinking I recognised this stranger who lives next door. The boy with the blue eyes. I walk into the lounge to see my mum slumped in her chair reading a book about relationship failures. She immediately expects me to clean up after her, but this time I refuse. I have questions I need answers to.

'Do you know Peeta Mellark?', I ask her curiously.

She replies very sharply in a furious tone. 'Of course I do! He's the new boy next door!'

The tone in her voice makes me very suspicious.

'I mean, before he moved. I seem to remember him from somewhere, have we met?'.

The room fell silent, and a quiet response of 'do your homework' left my mum's mouth. Later that evening, she gives me a decent response, which only opened more questions.

'That's for Peeta to tell you'.


	3. Chapter 3

_Katniss POV_

_'That's for Peeta to tell you'. _

Just as this was said, I was overwhelmed by a noise at the door. As I peered outside, it was none other than the mysterious blue eyed boy. Everyone seemed to know him but _me_.

Peeta explains to me that I needed to go with him, wherever this may be, as it would help explain the questions I have yet to ask. I was sceptical about climbing into the front seat of his car as I was confused as to how he could explain via a specific place.

The entire location he dragged me to, smelt sterile and clean, as if someone had poured hand sanitizer over the ground and let it seep into the Earth's pores. Despite this, the derelict site was far from clean. Abandoned wheelchairs were imprinted with barely viewable writing. Needles which could only be assumed to have saved people's lives, once upon a time, were scattered across the neglected area.

There, I was overwhelmed with emotion. There, memories I never knew existed flooded back. There. There, was the place I forgot about. There, I didn't understand fully until I saw it. There, right in front of me was the hospital Peeta and I were born in.

I was surprised even Peeta remembered who I was. We were both so young.

I was born on the 8th of May 1997. That makes me 16 (if you hadn't already worked it out). My dad walked out when I was 11 but I, up until now, understood him to be the only person exiting my life. I was filled with the feeling of rejection, as if no one ever particularly cared for me and my sister Prim. Since my mother went off the wagon, that's how it has appeared to be on each and every day.

Peeta was born on the 1st of May, the week before me. His mother was in the hospital bed next to my mum and that was how they met. They lived opposite each other at the time, therefore me and Peeta would stick together as if we were literally inseparable. As if he was the peanut butter and I was the jelly. I would cry whenever he would go home. When we were 5, I was given the devastating news Peeta would never return to our small town of Parker, Colorado.

Now, him, _and his family_ have the audacity to return and pretend it is all okay. He has the nerve to assume we would return to our friendship status like when we were 5. It isn't okay.

I need time to consume my thoughts. I've been trying to hide under a microscope for my entire life, showing everyone something was wrong, but never actually consulting it. Maybe, just maybe, now is the time to revive mine and Peeta's relationship. Make us the way we used to be. Open up to someone. Just friends though. None of that disgusting love stuff. I don't want to end up loving him. I get enough of that feeling chatter from Gale.

Loving Peeta, would be weird.

I make him take me home. I need time to consider the possibility of being friends again. I know it was 11 years ago, but I can't forgive him. At the same time, I understand it wasn't really his fault and it was out of his control. We were 5 after all.

I suppose it would be weird returning to being best friends again. Gale replaced his role when he left to go to Miami. I mean, a girl can't be caught up on her best friend forever. I pushed the thought of him to the back of my mind, expecting him to never return and moved on with my life.

At school, Peeta is great at fixing things. Perhaps this is his attempt at fixing our friendship. Who knows? I really need the time to consider all the possibilities and actually climb into his shoes and see things from his point of view. He obviously wants to be friends with me. So why is my subconscious telling me this is a bad idea?

As I enter my house, I slam the door, not even whispering a word of goodbye to the boy with the pools of blue waiting for me to drown in them. I forgot to close my blinds though. Standing there, shirtless, throwing broken paperclips at my window, expecting me to open it, was _him_. Peeta.

I cautiously open my window and he takes hold of my hand. I look down as if to say, _'what are you doing?'_ but before I know it, he gradually forces his way through the small space between our houses and into my room. He perches at the end of my bed as I wonder about the incidents that occurred earlier on in the day.

About to open my mouth, I reconsider and allow him to say the first words. I really didn't know what to say, what movements to make, and right now I don't even know what to think.

Why did he return?

I move my arm and pick up my phone. To me it was a distraction to the awkward silence which seemed to have lasted a decade. It was almost as if the time I spent without him was multiplied by 10 and that was the time it took for him to come out with something to say.

It was clear he wanted to be friends, he obviously wanted to sort the mess created at the hospital. It was also evident that he was apologetic. It was as if the lakes in his eyes were about to overflow down his delicate cheeks.

Before anything else was said, he opened his mouth and forced 4 of the worst words in the world through the small gap in his mouth.

'We need to talk'.


	4. Authors Note

Hi everyone, it's Kirsten I'm sorry this isn't an update but me and Katie have had a lot of stuff going on and we have our GCSE exams starting in a few weeks as well, I know we haven't updated in almost a month but the next chapter is almost done and we may be able to get it up at some point tonight or this weekend but we promise it will be up really soon. As we said to begin with we will try to update as soon as we can but they might be quite slow especially from the beginning of May – the end of June because that's when our exams are but like I said before we will try and update as often as we can :)

Could you also follow us on twitter pleeaasssseeee?

Katie: KrRodford

Kirsten: kirsty_iggleden

Thankyouu :P


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